On the Soft Edges of Love

      

No matter how spiritually skillful we may be or how practiced we are at thinking clearly, there are simply going to be times when it is hard to love someone. I’m not thinking of the complexities of love either; I am just thinking of everyday extensions of ourselves to others as brothers and sisters in life. Sometimes we just can’t manage to gather our thoughts affirmatively about another, whatever the reason. I had a wonderful, ministerial colleague many years ago who had a great solution to times like these. Her connection to the Infinite was deeply personal and she used terms that, to her, were very connective. She would say, “Father (her favorite term for God), I just can’t love this person, so you love her through me.” For her, it worked like a charm. All the constrictions melted away, and she was able to deal with equanimity in all situations.

Very old-timey...

For some of us this kind of postulation is going to seem very old-timey, and I suppose it is. For others, who understand the soft edges of love, it will be well understood. For those of us who have lived long enough to know that logic and reason will not always get us where we want to go, we will know by now that there is no need to resist the turns that love will take. There are many ways to love, and sometimes the best way is to give it over to the greater part of ourselves that knows how to let go and let the soft side take over.

No disease that enough love will not heal...

Love has a capacity for healing that nothing else has, and this doesn’t always lend itself to good sense. But, then, it doesn’t have to. Emmet Fox once wrote that there is “no disease that enough love will not heal; no door that enough love will not open; no gulf that enough love will not bridge; no wall that enough love will not throw down.”

...Sometimes so softly we might not even notice for a while…

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